Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Well, it is definitely not summer anymore. I can tell this by how many layers I need to put on in the morning to bike to work. Seriously, booties, pants, multiple shirts, arm warmers, ear warmers, gloves....it takes a good 5 extra minutes nowadays just to get out the door.

A week ago, I had to travel to Guernsey in the English Channel for a week for work, so that was a full week with no biking. The good thing was that they at least had a 17 meter pool in the hotel, and lot's of hills to run on outside. I think I did a total of 4 swims (about 2K total each time) and 4 runs ranging from 8K to 14K. The 14K run was pretty cool. I ran to the top of a large hill that snaked it's way down to the coast. The elevation at the top of the hill was about 95m and at the bottom it was about 8m. I did 2 hill repeats of this, which were pretty tough. The only other hill as steep as this I have ever run up before is in Bermuda (Southampton Princess Hotel hill).

Once back from Guernsey, I continued on with my riding to work and back (59K round trip). On average, I have been doing this 3x week. In addition, I have been doing my Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning swim training in New Hamburg. For anyone swimming on their own and in need of swim workouts, definitely check out www.swimplan.com. This used to be a free site, but they have recently upgraded it, and made it better. Now they are asking you to pay $9.95 per year for pretty much unlimited swim plans. I use this all the time and love having to not come up with workout to do. I can get a new workout every day. Most of their workouts focus on shorter interval sets (50s, 100s or 200s), but they do throw in longer core workouts once an a while. I often just do some time trials at least once a month to see where I am at endurance wise.

This past weekend, I did my longest bike ride since the Muskoka 70.3 race. I rode 94K. Around 45K into a headwind where I could barely average 30kph and then with a tailwind, where I rode between 45-50kph. The next day, I did a 20.5K run with my son Holden, who biked while I ran.

I'm also trying to stick with my mid week running where I would do a tempo type of run Tuesday and an interval set Thursday. This weekend, I'm planning on doing a 25K run, which will be my last long run prior to Clearwater on November 13. I've definitely been focusing more on my running since the Muskoka race, as that is where I felt like I performed the worst. The bike is dead flat in Clearwater, so I'm not too worried about it. I really want to have a strong run off the bike, so that is what I have been focusing on. If I could only run as strong as Macca off the bike, I'd be in business!!! Wow, what a great race in Kona this past weekend. I'm pumped to get to Clearwater to be part of that World Championship atmosphere!